


Care Package

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Follow the North Star [22]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 19:06:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11065242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: “Okay, what are you dying to tell me?” Victor mumbles.“What are you talking about?” Evan asks.“You’re just keeping me company out of the kindness of your heart?” Victor asks.“Yes,” Evan says, sounding a little offended.





	Care Package

Victor is probably dying. That’s what he’s decided, after hour after hour in bed, not even close to enough of them sleeping, two boxes of Kleenex, and so much coughing he thinks his lungs are broken. He probably shouldn’t have played last night, his lungs are loudly testifying to that, but he thought he was okay, at least kind of okay, right up until he stepped on for his first shift. Or, more like at the end of his first shift, where his breathing was coming out in wheezes and all that was going through his mind was ‘I have made a terrible mistake’, over and over.

There’s mandatory practice today, but Victor was straight up told not to show, that resting up to see if he felt up to going on the road takes precedence, and he’s not stupid enough to argue that, unlike _someone_ he knows, who hid a flu last season and almost threw up on the ice. 

Victor tries to sleep in. Keyword tries, because he keeps waking himself up coughing just after he’s drifted off, so even though he’s been in bed for, like, thirteen hours, he’s maybe gotten seven hours of sleep tops. He should have taken the nighttime cold stuff, even though it makes him feel woozy. Better woozy and sleeping than sober and coughing.

A little after noon he’s given up on the sleeping in and has resigned himself to staring miserably at the ceiling and feeling sorry for himself. He’s run out of Kleenex, but he doesn’t have the energy to go anywhere, definitely doesn’t feel like he should be driving after taking cold meds, even if they’re daytime ones. The nearest convenience store’s barely more than a five minute walk, but it’s below freezing out and he’s been shivering under _blankets_ , so he doesn’t think he’d handle it well.

He’s considering sending Evan a pathetic message in the hopes he’ll swing by with more Kleenex after practice when there’s a knock on the door, and he drags himself out of bed with his comforter wrapped around him, opening the door and shivering when a cold blast of air greets him, along with Evan carrying two bags.

“Did I summon you with my brain?” Victor scratches out.

“You sound terrible,” Evan says, frowning. If Evan’s saying something as bad as terrible, Victor must sound something even worse than terrible. Maybe he _is_ dying.

“What you got there?” Victor asks.

“Soup, Kleenex, cough drops, Nyquil—” Evan starts.

He had Victor at Kleenex. “You can come in,” Victor says, shuffling out of his way and going to lie down on the couch.

“I’m going to go heat the soup up, okay?” Evan says, and Victor squints at where he’s towering over him then waves a hand. He’s not really hungry, but he hasn’t eaten since before the game last night, so hungry or not, he needs to eat. Evan comes back when Victor’s halfway to asleep with soup and toast. Victor doesn’t think he actually has any bread, so Evan must have brought that too.

“You’re a good person,” Victor mumbles, and sits up just enough that he won’t spill soup all over himself when he eats.

“Okay, what are you dying to tell me?” Victor mumbles when Evan fidgets through his soup eating.

“What are you talking about?” Evan asks.

“You’re just keeping me company out of the kindness of your heart?” Victor asks.

“Yes,” Evan says, sounding a little offended, which. Fair. There’s literally no one else Victor would believe that of except his parents, but Evan? He can see that.

“Soup buys you five minutes of talking about your boyfriends,” Victor says, then thinks of the Kleenex. “Maybe seven.”

Evan shrugs. “Nothing to say,” he says.

Victor looks at him suspiciously. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong!” Evan says. 

“How’d the date with Roman go?” Victor asks. He had to go shirt shopping with Evan and talk him through a minor crisis about whether to wear a tie before his date, now that he thinks about it, it’s suspicious that he hasn’t heard anything, sick or not.

Evan straight up loses a foot of height, he slumps so hard.

“That bad?” Victor asks.

“I screwed it up,” Evan says. “He took me to this fancy, romantic place, and all I could think about was someone recognizing us and realizing it was a date, and all the stuff on the menu had ingredients I didn’t even recognize, and I didn’t even order _water_ correctly, Vic, they were asking what kind and I just wanted water, and Roman asked me if I wanted to go get a burger before we even ordered, I was so awful. He said he didn’t mind but he was being so thoughtful and all I could do was worry about whether they’d get mad if I asked them to take stuff out of the meal or if I’d eat something and it’d be gross and I’d have to like, spit it out in front of Roman and he’d realize what a--”

“Breathe, Ev,” Victor says. “Go get a glass of water, okay?”

Evan does, and gets one for Victor too. Victor’s about as thirsty as he is hungry, and as aware that it’s something he needs whether or not his body is interested, so he sips slowly while Evan gulps his down, looking a little further from the straight up panic attack he was on his way to.

“Roman knows you, okay, dude?” Victor says. “I’m sure he didn’t take it personally.”

“That’s what he said,” Evan says.

“You don’t believe him?” Victor asks. Roman isn’t really the kind of guy to take many things personally, and he knows Evan worries about stuff, has always been good about it. Victor’s mom has anxiety, so he’s got experience with it, knows it isn’t rational, and the only other person who’s been as on it with Evan as Victor has been — hopes he has been — has been Roman. Victor’s pretty sure he didn’t take it personally. 

Evan mumbles something too low for Victor to hear.

“What?” Victor asks.

“He didn’t want to come in,” Evan mumbles.

“Like—” Victor says.

“Like I offered him a beer and he didn’t want one,” Evan says.

“Maybe he didn’t want a beer,” Victor says.

“I wasn’t just offering a beer, Vic!” Evan moans. “And he got all, like, ‘I want to take this slow’ and ‘not on the first date’, but I’ve seen him pick people up from _bars_ , he probably—”

“Why don’t you _ask_ him?” Victor asks.

“Like he’d say it if he just doesn’t want to,” Evan says. “I can’t even order water right, who could blame him?”

“Evan,” Victor says. Evan’s slumped shoulders genuinely hurt to see. “I would hug you if I wasn’t gross and contagious.”

Evan smiles a little. 

“And maybe he figured _you_ wanted to go slow,” Victor says. “I mean, you’re the one who thinks hooking up means gentle kisses.”

Evan gives him a halfhearted finger. “I’ve had sex,” he mutters.

“Please don’t elaborate,” Victor says. “I’ll never be able to wipe the images of Chalmers’ freckled ass out of my head.”

“He doesn’t have freckles on his—” Evan starts.

“Connelly!” Victor shouts, then immediately gets into a coughing fit. Fucking cold. Evan hands him his water when he’s through. “Fire bush then,” Victor amends, after he’s had a few sips, which Evan can’t argue. Victor doesn’t look in the locker room or anything, but it’s hard to avoid getting an eyeful by accident.

“You like redheads,” Evan says. “Your last two girlfriends were redheads.”

“Not _real_ ones,” Victor says, though point taken. It’s different with dudes. Like, obviously, because he’s straight, but popular opinion seems to be that redheads are only hot if they’re female. Victor’s met Harry’s sister, who somehow managed to both look a lot like Harry and be super pretty at the same time, which is all the proof he needs. “No fire bush there.”

Evan makes a face. “Thanks for telling me,” he says. “I _met_ both of them.”

“I am on a _team_ with the dudes you’re fucking,” Victor says. “Or. Um.” Evan’s shoulders are slumping again. “Will fuck? Future fucking.”

Evan lets out this snort that somehow sounds tragic, and Victor, who has pledged to keep the fuck out of it and also try to know as little as possible, especially about the sex, has the sudden urge to go to Roman and demand he fuck Evan so he quits thinking he did something wrong. Evan has that effect on him, making him want to do shit he wouldn’t otherwise consider, like go for children’s hospital visits even though germs freak him the fuck out — he loves Evan but he wouldn’t go anywhere near him if it was him nursing this cold — or do a couple’s costume for Halloween, or go to British Columbia for a week in the summer. Nothing against BC itself, he’s liked Vancouver whenever they’ve gone, but Evan lives so far in the interior he spent half as much time traveling as he did hanging out with Evan, and most of that hangout time was spent training.

“Can I have the Kleenex?” Victor asks, trying to look as pathetic as possible, because he knows the best way to get Evan out of this is to give him tasks. That and he needs to blow his nose and moving is very difficult right now. He has a feeling he isn’t going to be cleared to go on the road trip, which he’s trying not to think about right now.

“Of course,” Evan says, springing up, and he returns with a box of Kleenex, a bottle of Gatorade, and some lozenges. 

“I love you,” Victor rasps. He almost asks him to be his boyfriend but like, sex free, but now is emphatically not the time to make that joke. “How’re things with Harry?” he asks instead, hoping that subject’s more likely to get a smile than another full body slump.

“Aren’t my seven minutes up?” Evan asks, and from anyone else it’d be sarcastic, but with Evan Victor half thinks he hit a timer when he started to talk. Who even remembers the arbitrary number Victor set? Not Victor, that’s for sure.

“You get extra for the Kleenex,” Victor says. “You and Harry?”

“We’re good,” Evan says, “Really good actually.” He doesn’t elaborate beyond that, going quiet and looking kind of thoughtful.

“What?” Victor asks, after he’s blown his nose twice and stuck a lozenge in his mouth and Evan still hasn’t said anything.

“It’s nothing,” Evan says. “You need anything else? I can run to the store.”

Victor doesn’t know if that’s avoidance or just him being typically helpful, but he’s not going to pry if Evan doesn’t want to say anything. Honestly, he doesn’t even want to be in this position, but what’s he going to do, tell Evan he can’t vent to Victor and just let it burn him up inside? It’s not like there’s a long list of people Evan could talk to about it. Fitzy’s probably a little better equipped, but Fitzy would also probably say some super racy shit that made Evan burn into embarrassed ashes. Victor’s what he’s got, and Victor doesn’t like the job, but he’ll take it for Evan’s sake.

“Pretty sure you bought me the whole drug store, Ev,” Victor says. 

“I didn’t know what would be effective,” Evan says, a little defensive, like Victor’s seriously calling him out on being the sort of dude who brings you three types of cold meds. Harry and Roman are super lucky and they better fucking know that, or Victor will…Victor probably won’t do anything except disapprove, but honestly, moving from room to room is hard right now, disapproving is all he has.

“Want to watch something?” Evan asks. “I always watched How I Met Your Mother marathons when I was sick.”

“Are you trying to make me suffer more?” Victor asks, then, “You sure you want to hang out? I’m still contagious.”

“I’m halfway across the room,” Evan says.

“I’m wafting it at you,” Victor says, laughing when Evan wrinkles his nose, which once again gets him coughing. “No comedies if you’re sticking around,” he decides. Laughing hurts.

“Planet Earth?” Evan asks, possibly the only person Victor knows who watches it sober, and Victor shrugs agreement, falls asleep to the riveting adventures of tree frogs. 

When he wakes up it’s dark out, and his half empty Gatorade has been replaced by a full one, a note beside it written on the back of the drug store receipt:

_I had to go pack. You looked like you needed the sleep so I used my spare key to lock up. Soup in the fridge and bananas and bread (for toast) on the counter. They say those are good when you have a cold. There’s also some tea in the cupboard, I know you don’t like it but it’ll help!_

_I hope you feel better soon!_

_Evan_

“Neither of those losers deserve you,” Victor mumbles, then shuffles off to bed.


End file.
